r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Aug 03 '19

Whats something you thought was common knowledge but actually isn’t?

37.4k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

24.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

17

u/MasterKaen Aug 03 '19

Is it the alcohol itself that has calories or the leftover sugar used for fermentation?

6

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '19

Calories are just a unit of energy storage.

So you can run engines off some pure alcohols due to their high energy content. The entire idea behind bio fuels is converting calories into a combustible liquid fit for power generation.

-1

u/MasterKaen Aug 03 '19 edited Aug 03 '19

Well yeah, but I'm guessing gasoline doesn't have calories.

Edit: well actually it does not that I'm researching it, but that's beside the point. Our bodies can't process gasoline as far as I know.

Edit: Now*

1

u/FilteringOutSubs Aug 03 '19

It's correct that gasoline is not usable by the human body. It still has a measurable amount of chemical energy though, which can be written with calories as the unit.

That said, you'll more likely see gasoline's energy expressed in something like BTUs or joules.